


(gonna give) all my love to you

by ccj



Series: come give your love to me [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, v belated sequel to my last st fic, will coming out to joyce this time!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28524795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ccj/pseuds/ccj
Summary: Will doesn’t kiss Charlie now but he knows that his smile is intimate enough. So much so that Mike, Dustin, and Lucas become suddenly preoccupied with digging into the waffles. Will gets up and gets the syrup from the fridge. Charlie pops the final three waffles into the toaster. Will loves him and it’s simple.
Relationships: Joyce Byers & Will Byers, Will Byers & Dustin Henderson & Lucas Sinclair & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers/Original Male Character(s)
Series: come give your love to me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089515
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	(gonna give) all my love to you

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Here's a very belated sequel to my last Stranger Things fic. It takes place the day after part 1, just more snippets of fluff and sappiness and love! Enjoy :) Title after an 80s Janet Jackson song again. Also once again, not necessarily realistic time period gay acceptance - I'm just having fun :) Dedicated to BB!

Will is woken up the next day by a rapping sound on his window. It’s a sound that he’s woken up to many times and it makes him smile instinctively into his pillow. Charlie has a habit of taking the window, not the door. Will asked him about it once, assured him that unlike Charlie’s family, no one in his family would question the boy coming over so often. Charlie had just shrugged and said that the window was the quickest route to him.

“Will,” a voice whispers beside him that he can’t quite make out. “Will, does your boyfriend not know how to use doors?”

Will jumps alert at the word _boyfriend_ , one he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to hearing. He’s especially not used to hearing it from Mike, who’s sitting next to him, already upright, nonchalantly flipping through a comic book he must have found in Will’s closet. “Seriously, I’m starting to get concerned. It just seems like a skill he should have learned by now.”

“Shit.” Will leaps up, smoothing the old, oversized t-shirt of Jonathan’s he wore to bed last night and running his fingers through his hair. Mike snickers behind him.

“You know he’s already seen you, right?” Mike asks, without looking up from his comic book, as Will hops out of bed. “Like, you’re aware that windows go both ways?”

“Will you shut up up there?” Lucas groans, “What fucking time is it?”

“Late enough for lover boy to make an appearance, evidently.” Mike smirks and Will turns on his heels, quickly stumbling over Dustin’s body (asleep, til Will’s foot wakes him up and he yelps) and Lucas’s body (half awake, enough so to punch Will in the ankle when he accidentally steps on his finger).

Will makes it to the window at last, flings it open, and there’s Charlie, hair perfectly coiffed and striped button down perfectly buttoned. Will’s used to the sight. He’s just not used to having an audience for it.

“Uh, hi.” Charlie gives a meek wave.

“Hi?” Will’s voice comes out confused and groggy.

“Sorry…I uh...” Charlie shoves his hands in his pockets, drops his voice a bit but it’s no use. Will doesn’t have to turn around to know that Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are all listening intently. “You’re usually awake by now?”

“Yeah, uh, we were up late.” Will pushes a hand through his hair then just sorts of lingers there, cradling the back of his own head, “Sup?” He hears a snicker that is definitely from Lucas and kicks a foot out. There’s a distinct, Dustin-like yell in response. Whoops.

“Well I’m glad you rested,” Charlie says, with a soft smile so sweet Will doesn’t quite know what to say. Will was never very talkative outside of campaigns but Charlie still always makes him feel at a loss for words. “Um, I need my math textbook. My mom’s gonna ask to see my work tonight since she thinks I’ll uh...be at study group. All day.”

Will’s still waking up, processing the words that are vague because Charlie’s obviously still speaking in code, unsure how much he can say in front of Will’s friends. “What...OH! It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

“Your genius precedes you Will,” Lucas mutters, earning another kick from Will, this time distributed correctly.

“It is indeed Saturday,” Charlie says, seemingly not hearing Lucas or probably, just pretending not to.

“What are you...where are you gonna be all day?” Will learned pretty early on in their relationship that he and Charlie would need to fabricate lies, and consistent ones, to appease Charlie’s parents. Charlie’s parents were a rarity in that they cared about the whereabouts of their son, and not because he’d once gone missing and later been possessed by a literal monster.

A few weeks in, Will came up with a plan. They told Charlie’s parents that he’d joined a study group, not one for kids that were failing their classes (that would raise more concern) but for kids that were going places to encourage each other, to go above and beyond.

The fake study group met every Saturday. The real Will and Charlie went on dates every Saturday, usually in Will’s bedroom where they could draw the shades and do things they always did, like writing campaigns and swapping comic books and kissing whenever Will’s mom wasn’t busting in with snack offerings.

“I don’t know.” Charlie shrugs. “Maybe go to the library and do actual work? Or just blow all my quarters at the arcade...only time will tell.”

“Have breakfast with us,” Will says quickly, before he can think or even stop himself. “Uh I mean…” He turns around, facing his friends, “if that’s alright with you guys.”

“I will literally eat breakfast with Gorbachev himself if you shut up and let me get another hour of sleep,” Lucas mutters, while Dustin sits upright.

“Breakfast?! Can we have waffles?! Mike won’t ever let us eat them because they make him miss El-”

“Shut up!” Mike flings Will’s pillow across the room at him. Will folds his arms, watching Mike, waiting. Mike’s returned back to his comic book. Will clears his throat. “What?” Mike looks up, giving an impatient sigh. “I’m trying to read.”

“Can Charlie come for breakfast?”

“What are you asking me for?!” Will gives Mike a look, one that he knows will say what he’s thinking because they’ve known each other long enough. Mike sighs, leans over, peering around Wil at Charlie. “You like comic books, dude?”

“I...that’s mine.” Charlie’s voice comes from outside. He’s still waiting at the threshold, like a vampire waiting to be asked in.

“What?”

“The comic book you’re reading.” Will gives Charlie a small nod and he steps over the threshold and easily crosses into the room, hopping over Lucas and Dustin’s bodies without bumping into them. “It was mine, see.” He takes the book from Mike’s hands, causing Mike to give him an immediate glare, and then he flips to the front page, pointing it out to Mike.

“C.B. W.B,” Mike reads out loud, plainly.

“Well, it was mine. Now it’s Will’s. I read it too many times.”

“You read it too many times?” Mike frowns. “This came out like two weeks ago. I haven’t even read it once yet.”

Charlie shrugs. He doesn’t say what Will knows to be true: that he reads new edition comic books once and quickly passes them off to Will, who can’t afford them as easily as Charlie’s family can. He never makes a big deal of gifting them to Will, he simply drops them as he’s leaving through the window or tucks them under Will’s pillow or slips them into his backpack. He always pencils in Will’s initials for him, as to solidify that it’s his now. More often than not, there’s a heart between the two sets of initials.

Mike may not know every detail of this but he knows Will enough to know that sharing comic books is the highest form of intimacy for him. That’s probably why he says, “Stay for breakfast, man. I assume the freezer’s stocked with Eggo waffles.”

“It tends to be,” Charlie says and it occurs to Will how odd it is that Charlie knows this house better than Mike does.

***  
Will and Charlie make their way to the breakfast table while Mike, Dustin, and Lucas “get ready” (said with a wink from Dustin).

“They know,” Will blurts out when Charlie carefully sits on the opposite end of the table. “I mean, I told them. About us.” Charlie raises his eyebrows and Will drums his fingers on the table. “They were fine with it. And they won’t tell anyone! I mean, Dustin has a big mouth but it’s not like they know your mom-”

“Will. Relax.” Charlie reaches out, locks his hand in Will’s easily. “It’s okay. Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Of course I’m fine.” Charlie raises his eyebrows but this time, Will knows, it means something different. “What? They were fine with it so-”

“Will, you just said fine like twenty times. I didn’t ask if you were fine, I asked if you were okay.”

“There’s no difference.”

“There’s definitely a difference,” Dustin says from the doorway and Will yelps, instinctively drawing his hand back from Charlie’s.

“They sound like the same word to me,” Lucas mutters, pushing past Dustin and sitting down beside Will.

“That’s because they _are_ the same word.” Mike files in last, frowning at the lack of chairs at the table. Charlie jumps up, grabbing two spare folding chairs from the hall closet, which only makes Mike frown harder. “We only need one extra.”

“Oh I just assumed uh...Jonathan usually eats with us on Saturdays.” Charlie unfolds the chair and leaves it empty, moving towards the freezer and pulling out the Eggo waffle box. He’s either completely unaware of the four pairs of eyes staring at him or has the best poker face Will’s ever seen.

As if on cue, Jonathan comes out, camera looped around his neck and tucking his shirt into his pants. “Hey.” He gives the boys a nod. It takes a moment for his eyes to wander over to Charlie. When he does, he looks to Will who gives him a shrug. “You have enough to eat?” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled five dollar bill, and frowns before pressing it down onto the table. It’s a subtle frown, a blink if you miss it frown, but Will notices.

“Are you working today?”

Jonathan nods. “I picked up an extra shift, yeah, with mom not working this weekend I figured-“

“Is that for your lunch?” Will folds his arms and Jonathan doesn’t answer. “Take it back.”

Jonathan sighs. “You know things were so much easier before…” he pauses, eyes flitting towards Charlie, “before you grew up. You used to never talk back to me. The whole two inch growth spurt and getting a boyfriend thing has really gone to your head, Byers.”

“Take it,” Will says, crossing the room, pushing the five into Jonathan’s hand firmly.

“There’s seven waffles here,” Charlie says quickly, “so if everyone has two and one person has one-“

“That doesn’t add up,” Mike quickly interjects.

“What are you, the math police?” Lucas mutters.

“I want cereal,” Charlie says, which is definitely a lie but Will doesn’t have the energy to fight both of them right now. “Besides, if we need to go to the store I have extra quarters from when my mom thought I was going to the arcade when I came over last Friday.”

“Ugh.” Jonathan pushes a hand to his forehead, “I don’t like that there’s two of you.” Will shrugs, this time with a smile, and Jonathan tucks the money into his pocket. “I gotta get going but call the office if anything happens-“

“I know.”

“Number’s on the fridge.” Jonathan grabs a three day old bagel leftover from the diner their mom works at and shoves it in his mouth.

“Yes I know, it’s exactly where it always is.” Will rolls his eyes.

Jonathan pulls the bagel out, narrows his eyes on his brother. “And I mean it like I always do.” Jonathan reaches forward, ruffles a hand through Will’s hair which he quickly moves to smooth down. “And no funny business while I’m gone!” He calls after him.

“Gross!” Will calls back. Then the door shuts and it’s just him, his best friends, and his boyfriend all packed into his small kitchen.

There’s a silence that feels like it’ll last forever when Dustin says, “Holy shit. You son of a gun. You did grow two inches!”

“No shit, really?” Mike jumps to his feet and stands across from him. They’re about the same height now. It’s weird, not having to look up to meet his eyes. “Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?” Will sinks back into a chair, uncomfortable under Mike’s scrutiny. Mike stays standing, like he’s waiting for something.

“It’s just...weird.” Mike looks at Charlie as he says it but Charlie’s busy plopping waffles into the toaster. “Have we missed anything else major?” He says it like he’s joking but Will knows him well enough to know that he’s not.

“Mike. My life’s pretty boring here,” Will says and Charlie raises his eyebrows. “I don’t mean that in a bad way! I mean it in the best way, like I just...go to school. I do homework. I go to AV club and hang out with Charlie’s friends sometimes. I watch movies with El. I… I miss you guys. It’s weird. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like, if we could have had that in Hawkins. The boring stuff, I mean.”

Will’s woken up from enough nightmares screaming that Charlie’s asked questions. He tells him a microscopic fraction of the truth: that his dad sucks and his step dad passed away and when they left Hawkins, it was more of an escape than a move.

Honestly, he wasn’t going to tell Charlie anything but El urged him to. “Because friends don’t lie, right?” he asked sarcastically with a small eye roll when she brought it up the first time.

“No,” she said, “because you need to be sad in front of him sometimes.”

Will hasn’t quite mastered that yet.

“Yeah,” Mike says, “I uh, wonder that too.”

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Charlie says as he places four waffles on the table. Will knows immediately that he’s lying. He’s so clearly lying just to give the four of them a moment of space, to give Will a moment to be sad without him there. Will loves him so much for it he’s afraid the feeling might crush him. Charlie grazes Will’s arm with his hand as he goes, clearly trying to pass it off as an accident, and Will’s just gonna be crushed forever, isn’t he?

“I mean, we wouldn’t have met El if it weren’t for everything that happened, right?” Dustin asks once Charlie’s out of earshot. “And Max probably wouldn’t have stuck around if we were just Dungeons and Dragons nerds-”

“Hey!” Lucas shouts, “Steve would never have talked to you if it weren’t for-”

“Guys!” Mike cuts in, “We get it! But like...look, sure an alternate, normal version of Hawkins sounds great but...you’re happy here, right?”

“I… I mean.” He considers lying. He considers the truth: that some days he’s happier than he ever was in Hawkins, and it just feels too cruel. But Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are all looking at him like they’re holding a collective breath and… “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Is that...is that bad?”

There’s a very quick rush of three simultaneous “NO!”s and Will smiles, ducks his head a bit.  
“I just wish you guys could be here,” he says.

“Why?” Mike smirks, “Aren’t you too busy discovering the joys of ‘sucking face’?” he makes air quotes and Will blushes red.

“Okay, I never said sucking face!”

“You totally did!” Dustin shouts and then the four of them devolve into a laughing, shouting mess, all talking over each other all at once.

Charlie must hear because he walks back in, slowly, cautiously. Will smiles at him and he wants to kiss him. He won’t. He’s only ever kissed Charlie in front of El, as payback for all her time with Mike. He kissed him in front of Jonathan once, by accident, when he didn’t notice Jonathan in the living room, talking to Nancy in hushed tones.

When Charlie headed out the front door and Will closed the door behind him, he turned around to see Jonathan looking at him, a soft smile on his face. He had the phone pushed into his shirt and said, “You’re all grown up now, huh?” before going back to his conversation, as if nothing had happened.

Will doesn’t kiss Charlie now but he knows that his smile is intimate enough. So much so that Mike, Dustin, and Lucas become suddenly preoccupied with digging into the waffles. Will gets up and gets the syrup from the fridge. Charlie pops the final three waffles into the toaster. Will loves him and it’s simple.

***  
When Joyce and El come home, Will hangs back when the commotion unfolds. He just wants to see El’s face which, predictably, splits into the biggest smile he’s ever seen.

He sees his mom’s face too. She walks in first and before she even notices Mike or Dustin or Lucas or Charlie, her eyes pull towards Will, like a magnet she spent a summer obsessing over. And there’s that look, that, _you’re here, you’re alive, thank God you’re here and you’re alive_ look. It’s only a few seconds before it’s disrupted by El filing in and screaming when she sees Mike in her living room. But it’s more than enough.

“I’m gonna tell her,” Will whispers as he watches his mom give Lucas a tight hug. “Is it okay if I tell her?”

Charlie nods and for about three seconds, drops his head on Will’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you,” he whispers and he doesn’t need to hear it out loud to know it but it still makes his heart swell.

***  
He’s planning on waiting until tomorrow or maybe the day after, when Mike and Lucas and Dustin leave. Really, he is. But then it’s late at night, maybe 1 AM, and he crawls out quietly from his spot beside Mike to get a glass of water. And his mom’s there with a thread and needle in hand.

“Mom?” he asks and she glances up and there’s that look again because it’s not just when she comes home from work or he comes home from school - it’s anytime he enters a room. For a kid who’s been possessed by a monster, he feels pretty damn lucky. “What are you doing up?”

“Oh well I couldn’t sleep with all the excitement from today,” she says, “and I noticed that one of the boys’ bags had a rip in it so-” She gestures down to a bag with a Camp Nowhere patch that is undeniably Dustin’s. Will smiles and sits down across from her as she narrows her eyes on the thread, popping her tongue out with concentration. “Shit. Why do they make needles so damn small?”

“Here.” Will takes it from her, closes one eye, and carefully threads the needle. Then, he passes it back to her triumphantly and she’s, of course, smiling.

“What did I do to deserve a son like you?” she asks and his heart swells, like it has been this whole weekend, and suddenly, he can’t help it. He’s crying. And then he realizes that he’s crying solely because he’s happy and that just makes him cry more.

The thing is, Will thinks a lot about his time in the Upside Down. He gets so caught up in all that was lost - a year of his life, control of his mind, two almost step dads. Because of that, he forgets this: any other mother would have accepted that he was dead. Any other mother would have seen the lights flickering and thought, “I should hire someone to come fix that” or, “Maybe this is a sign from God, telling me he’s passed on.” But not her. Not his mom.

And she’s so focused on relishing in the fact that he’s safe that sometimes, Will wonders if she’s forgotten that she’s the one who saved him.

“Oh sweetie, what’s wrong?” She reaches forward and holds him tight and Will hiccups out a breath, remembers the year when all he wanted was to be held like this.

“I just… mom, Charlie and I-”

“Oh honey, I know,” she says quickly, “Sorry, I just. I know, I know, it’s okay shhhhh,” and she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand that he’s not crying because he’s scared. He’s crying precisely because he doesn’t have to be scared but if he had literally any other mom-

He doesn’t have any other mom though. He has Joyce Fucking Byers. How lucky is he?

***  
Mike, Lucas, and Dustin head back to Hawkins the next day and Charlie comes by to send them off. Will can’t help the small little laugh that escapes him as Mike gives Charlie a horrendously awkward hybrid of a hug and a pat on the back.

“Oh fuck you, let us bond!” Mike says and then, he pulls Will in for a hug and just sort of...holds him there for an absurdly long time. When they pull back, they both clear their throats awkwardly and Mike says, “Hey maybe we’ll… maybe we’ll go to college near each other or something.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying, maybe-”

“Maybe we’ll all go to school in like New York or something together and it’ll be like fucking awesome,” Dustin shouts out.

“Shh!” Lucas hisses, “We’re supposed to be subtle!”

“Don’t be subtle,” Will laughs a watery laugh and pulls Dustin and Lucas in for a group hug. He gives Mike a look over their shoulders, a raise of an eyebrow, and Mike comes forward, wraps his arms around all three of them and it’s a glorious moment that Will never wants to end.

“Maybe we could have that, right?” Mike asks once he finally pulls back and El’s hanging an arm around his neck. He looks down at El and she just frowns up at him.

“Maybe we could...but why don’t you just come for the summer first?” Will asks and Mike’s eyes go wide when he says it, “I mean, it’s no Starcourt here but-” They all laugh, except for Charlie who’s smiling like a good sport.

And then they leave, back to Hawkins and Will’s heart tugs hard but he knows he belongs here. They watch a movie together that night, the five of them, Will, Jonathan, El, Charlie, and his mom. They eat pizza and sit in front of the TV and Will loves his family a lot but he’s not sure how they ever got by just the three of them. He’s not sure he even knew something was missing until he had it.

***  
At the end of the night, Will lies in bed beside Charlie.

“Your mom’s really okay with me sleeping over?” Charlie asks, sitting upright in bed. He’s wearing an old shirt of Will’s, like he often does when he sleeps over, but this time he’s wearing a Hawkins AV club shirt. Will’s heart beats a little faster. “I mean, Mike slept in your room, not El’s…”

“She’s fine with it,” he says, settling his head down into his pillow, “The rules are different for Mike and El. I mean, they can be together everywhere but here...we get the opposite. She gets that. That won’t stop her and Jonathan from knocking down the door but-”

Charlie chuckles and seems to settle a bit. He lies down and all Will wants to do is hold him so he does. He reaches out, wraps his arms around him, and Charlie goes easily. He settles his head on Will’s collarbone, looks up, and says, “Sometimes, I feel like you’re holding back.”

“W...what?”

“Like there’s something you’re not telling me,” Charlie says, “like you think I can’t take it. Like you think I can’t...carry it with you. But I can, Will. I know I can.”

Will doesn’t cry for the second time in one weekend but it’s a close thing. It’s just amazing - how he’s so happy but Charlie can still sense that small sad part of him that will always take up a little piece of his heart. And not only can he sense it but he wants to have it take up a part of his heart too.

Will instinctively wants to feel the back of his neck, just to double check, to triple check, to quadruple check but that would mean letting go of Charlie so he doesn’t.

Instead, he looks up at the sign still hastily taped to the ceiling and thinks about his mom and Jonathan and El and his friends. All these people who love him stupidly unconditionally. Then, he looks to the window, and says, “It started with a bike ride.”

And Charlie listens.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Thank u to everyone who encouraged me to write a sequel all those months ago, sorry it's so late!


End file.
